Autism Awareness Color War: Will you be lighting it up red gold or blue?

My son was recently diagnosed with autism and when April rolled around I wanted to do my part in spreading awareness and acceptance of the autistic community. As I was getting ready to light my profile pic blue I discovered there were other colors to choose from.

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I decided to start looking into the meaning behind each of them and that's when I discovered the color war. I feel like my eyes have been opened to a whole new world and I'd like to share my findings with you.

Gold

Light it up gold chooses to go beyond awareness and asks for acceptance instead. It was started by the autistic community to show an opposing side to light it up blue which was started by Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks is a controversial organization that actually autistics feel demeans their autistic traits and focuses their efforts on finding a solution or cure instead of support and acceptance. Focusing on acceptance is certainly a positive and important message to spread.

Acceptance asks you instead of trying to change us to be like you support us in feeling comfortable with being ourselves. There are so many wonderful things to celebrate about autistic individuals. It's important to respect their views on this matter no matter what color you end up choosing.

Here are some ways you can help support Gold

● Use yellow light bulbs or even gold Christmas lights on your patio or porch.

● Sport a gold infinity necklace (the gold campaign does not want to be associated with the puzzle piece).

● Incorporate gold into your clothing.

● Contstorefronthops and ask them to use gold lighting on their store front during the month of April.

Blue

The use of this color is definitely more widespread than the other 2 for now. The light it up blue campaign was started after April 2nd was established as autism awareness day in 2007. Autism speaks goal of the campaign is to bring awareness to a disorder that affects millions.

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You can't deny they have certainly brought awareness. As I stated earlier there is a growing group of autistic individuals who ask that you do anything but light it up blue and even go as far as to call them child abusers. However, there still remains several individuals who support autism speaks and the work they put into supporting an early diagnosis.

● If your really bold you can die your hair it seams to be a trending color lately anyways.

Red

#walkinred was created in 2015 by autistic individuals who felt bullied by Autism Speaks. They wanted to divert the attention away from what they see as a money hungry organization (A $). They ask everyone too wear red clothing and jewelry on April 2nd and 30th and post the pics on their social media platforms. They want people to respect Neuro diversity and see value in their unique way of looking at the world.

Comments

I think fighting over a single color to represent people on the spectrum is counter productive at the very least.
Being represented by a color will help literally 0 people who have autism. I think so much effort is put on awareness and too little effort is put on professional, community, and individual relationships with those who have autism. Awareness is good, but medical professionals and police officers who are trained to deal with autistic individuals, community acceptance and support, reliable and low cost respite care, ALL medical insurances covering therapy, medical evaluations, and stimming equipment, and millions of other things that actually help people with autism would be great.

Does a color really matter or the person on the spectrum? Don't try coming for me. I ask because there always seem to be some type of disagreement somewhere and personally my son don't care for colors at all and I'm pretty sure everyone on the spectrum don't all like the same color but all want and need acceptance.

I truly feel that we need to respect the #actuallyautistic and listen to what they choose. As a consensus, they are opposed to blue because of the connection to A$ and because blue is "normally" associated with boys and this diminishes the fact that girls are also autistic, which leads to misdiagnosis. So how about we don't tell them what color is best, but rather we let them decide.